I can't make up my mind on this one. On one hand we probably should make some rules etiquette and laws regarding VR, but on the other hand I made it through the Halo series just fine and was able to separate myself from what those people did to my corpse.
So...many...teabags
I would classify this as sexual harassment. It's no different from being sent obscene videos over email. The gravity resides in that they're sexual assault videos with the recipient being the victim.
Having been involved in something that was actually bad, I can say with certainty that there are enough rules already (in most places) that apply to these sorts of situations. Harassment and stalking crimes cover the sorts of things that need to be handled by police. If someone teabags you in Halo, or curses at you or says disgusting things in a voice chat, you either block them or shake your head and move on. If they follow you around through multiple lobbies, send/spam pictures or post/spray real pictures of genitalia (in places where it is not supposed to be, such as your inbox/cellphone/vr lobbies, obviously not talking about nsfw sites), those things are already crimes covered by harassment/stalking/sexting crimes.
There may be a few edge cases where someone can skirt the laws, but again, in my experience, the statutes are broad enough to catch almost everything you could imagine and want to be a crime.
crouch crouch crouch
Dip dip potato chip
It's a little silly at this stage, but I think there needs to be a legal framework around this thing now because eventually, our games will be realistic enough and immersive enough that this could become a serious issue.
You're joking right? Read about Ellen Page and the Beyond:Two Souls controversy.
Shit's already here. It's not just a little silly anymore. And with those AI deep fakes floating around, anyone can become a pornstar without even knowing about it.
People already killing themselves for fake rape allegations and social media pariah-ism, what now that fake porn with you in it can be made at any time?
This shit's a disaster in the making, not just a little silly.
This is the best comment in this thread so far. You make some excellent points.
What that girl experienced is definitely a form of harassment. And the VR part just made it more real than simple texts or photos. Which I think should be considered as a form of psychological assault.
And how fucked up must men and rape culture be that a girl can't even feel safe in a fucking virtual reality setting. Seriously, that's a big WTF. This is just sad.
I'd say it's more expected. People feel fat less social restraints when online. VR is no different.
It sounds ridiculous that they assaulted an avatar. I think it is the wrong take. The avatar is just the medium. The target was obviously the person behind the avatar. It's like saying that threats over text message is assaulting her phone.
Ssssh it's okay iphone. Don't listen to them. I know you were just protecting me from the bullies in high school
I didn't know how to feel about the headline when I read it, is it possible to do that? I still don't know. It's not really for me to decide how SHE feels either. It just sounds.... Weird? And not possible? I don't know.
Regardless, in my mind, it depends on what the action was. If I send a text to your phone to hack it, then I guess I'm "assaulting your phone" but if the phone is the medium used to get to you then obviously it's towards you.
And this can all be made moot by the software devs with an input box "keep non-friends N meters away". Its all tech and virtual. Whatever she has a problem with can be an option to toggle for her.
Example from the article what it can look like:
Recalling the experience, Ms Patel told the same programme that she was "surrounded by three to four male-sounding and male-representing avatars, who started sexually harassing me in a verbal sense and then sexually assaulting my avatar".
She said they had used misogynistic language and "continued to touch my avatar in a way that can only be described as a sexual assault of my avatar".
So, I guess the appropriate terminology would be sexual harassment of the person by virtual sexual assault on their avatar in the VR space, or something like that.
I can imagine for an innocent person unprepared for it to be ganged and surrounded by deviants in VR sounds like it could be a proper traumatic experience. I don't think there should be downplaying or normalizing this kind of experience for the sole reason that pervs are to be expected online. There is no reason to sink expectations of society to the lowest uncommon deranged denominator.
Maybe when an article says "The daily mail jas reported" we should completely ignore it until a better paper reports on it. Everything coming from the daily mail should be considered a lie.
I missed the Daily Mail bit. Thank you for pointing it out.
This is sexual harrassment, not assault. It's still disgusting, but there's no reasonable expectation of harm. They can always take off the headset.
And yet it's completely possible to kill someone with cyber bullying. Trauma is trauma.
Imagine if someone had killed them in a VR game
The amount of murder I have done in gaming. I'm going away for a long time boys💀
[the victim] suffered psychological trauma "similar to that of someone who has been physically raped".
No she didn't. I'm sure it wasn't a pleasant experience, but let's not over exaggerate the situation.
VR is immersive, but it isn't that immersive, especially when it comes to user feedback
Please don't kill people in Counter strike or they might get PTSD
Let's wait for the feel suits to arrive before equating virtual "crimes" to real ones, especially in a medium where you can just block anyone, at most this should go in the same place a death threat via text goes for now.
The victim was in an online 'room' with a large number of fellow users when the virtual assault by several adult men took place.
Taken from the DailyMail. Neither article has details on which VR game/app she was, nor what kind of "assault" it was. The dailymail says it was "on the metaverse", but "metaverse" could be VRChat, Fortnite or fucking Second Life for all we know. Could've even been on fuckzuck's metaverse, Horizon Worlds, but isn't it the place where you don't have a bottom half and other avatars are forced to stay the equivalent of 1.5m away from you at all times?
the Daily Mail
Ah yes so file this under shit that never happened.
Assaulting someone in a VR game is still assault especially if they never consented.
The fact that this is even compared to real SA is so fucked up. At least on the internet or game you can leave, it's not like your forced to endure the actions or behavior of other people.
What a joke.
Real crimes are being compared to vr "crimes". Next will be thought crimes.
Are you fucking kidding me?
They took cops off of real cases to work a VIRTUAL ASSAULT in a video game. (just harassment, not assault btw)
JFC I hope we fucking get nuked soon. We don't deserve to live.
I just feel like this would set a negative precedent for interactions in online games. Idk tho, not a lawyer.
Oh for fucks sake
It's harassment. The game or platform should ban or punish the user. This should be protected under free speech. It's still disgusting though.
why would sexually harassing children fall under free speech? I agree with you that it's not assault, but even in the absence of assault this behavior wouldn't be protected speech in real life and it shouldn't be protected speech online
The game should ban the offender but I can't not think involving the police is a bit ridiculous and waste of resources.
I think harassment is probably more appropriate, unless said metaverse somehow allows the sexual assault of avatars, which I don't think exists. I mean, IIRC Second Life technically has sex animations but afaik you have to strictly opt into that stuff. People can't just go around and use your avatar for it and even then it would be the question why she went into such a place & features if she didn't wanted to.
Just one count of assault? I've been teabagged online more times than I can count.
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